Update: 2/29/2007, see below
According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, Parmount Pictures will release its first Blu-ray titles in the summer. The studio's last HD DVD titles will be the already-scheduled Into the Wild and Things We Lost in the Fire, both due out next week. Paramount has canceled its remaining planned HD DVD releases, in favor of switching production to Blu-ray.
A curious point in this post-HD DVD drama: That Paramount is free to move forward with its Blu-ray plans, but its subsidiary DreamWorks Animation--which entered into an agreement with HD DVD proponents to back that now-moribund format--says it is still contracturally obligated to stay with HD DVD.
When that deal--which reportedly included financial kickbacks to Paramount and Dreamworks in exchange for their support of the HD DVD format--was first hatched in August 2008, industry insiders told me that the deal carried both a time limitation (18 months max--in spite of what Paramount executives said in interviews) and an escape clause. What's bizarre to me is that the escape clause appears in place for Paramount, but not for Dreamworks. An odd discrepancy in the legal paperwork--or perhaps someone's missing something? Inquiring minds want to know...
Update: According to High-Def Digest Digest, Paramount has clarified that DreamWorks Animation actually will be following Paramount, its studio parent, in the path to Blu-ray. That makes much more sense--my guess is that the reports circulating earlier in the week from DreamWorks that the company was still tied to HD DVD was more due to a communications breakdown than any legal wrangling.
Is anyone surprised to learn Microsoft had its own reservations over Vista?
Today we are learning more about Microsoft's decision to lower the minimum technical requirements needed to run Windows Vista to appease partners such as Intel. Microsoft's decision to put its partners before customers is sure to raise the ire among those frustrated when they attempted to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista and ran into hiccups.
According to internal e-mails released as part of a lawsuit that claims Microsoft deceived buyers when it promoted PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" Microsoft officials voiced some of the same complaints about missing drivers and crippled graphics as consumers have.
Continue reading "More Fodder for Vista Critics Surfaces"
Ultimately I still can't blame Microsoft for all the Vista Problems (I personally have not had any problems at all) As a general rule you should NEVER believe minimum system requirements on any software.
Vista works very well for me but you really need at LEAST 1gb of ram and a 915 integrated graphics card just isn't going to cut it.
Vista is not such a bad OS. I experienced a few minor problems myself when it first came out a year ago, but with all the updates that have taken place since it is very stable and worry-free. What SP1 will bring is another story.
Why can't anyone tell me why my Vista works EXTREMELY slow and has from day one. I did NOT upgrade - it came on my Gateway when I bought it. Why are there people like noahjwhite and SnTholiday who have no problems... What is the difference???? PLEASE, PLEASE tell me. I'm so tired of this. Microsoft won't help me and Gateway won't help me - UNLESS I pay their technicians for THEIR mistake!!!! I will probably never buy a Gateway or another Microsoft product due to the lack of support beyond 90 days. I spend WAY MORE than 90 days worth of product here! Is there ANY way I can fix my problems with SLOW response for literally EVERY click of my mouse? I have no viruses. While I was typing this message, my husband asked me for an email address. It took two clicks to get to it - those two clicks took me two minutes! That's insane. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO. I don't want to throw more good money at this problem with no promise of a fix. I am running Vista Home Pr
Welcome to the first installment of Talk Nerdy To Me, a bi-weeky feature where we'll talk about major trends and issues related to products and seek your guidance on the things that most matter to you.
This week: How much does price really matter to you when you're evaluating whether you want a particular HDTV?
A TV vendor has complained strongly that price is too large a factor in PC World's rating. Performance is the key, they've said.
Some history: The particular TV that sparked this performed brilliantly in our testing for 50 and 52-inch HDTVs, but its high price, compared to the competition, drove its overall rating down.
Our rating system for TVs (and most other products) combines four elements: test results as performed by the Test Center, design, specifications and price.
Each is assigned a weight to get a final rating: For HDTVs it's 40 percent for performance, 20 percent specifications, 20 percent design, and 20 percent price.
We feel that performance is the most important feature when it comes to HDTVs, but that price also plays a key factor when the average potential HDTV buyer is making purchase decisions.
Do you think that price is weighted too heavily in our rankings of HDTVs? Are you willing to pay top dollar for the best-performing set if you can get a good-performing set at a significantly lesser price?
Please answer in our poll and chime in using our comments section below. We'd love to know what you think and it will have an impact on our we rate these products.
It seems most people agree that price is a factor when they buy an HDTV. However, I?m getting mixed responses on whether or not price should be a factor in our overall PCW rankings. Some people want price taken out as they feel that PCW should be reporting on the facts of which HDTV is the best, sans price. Other people, however, seem to want to know which HDTV gives them the best bang-for-their-buck.
For me, personally, I think that most (I said most, not all) HDTVs produce great quality images. With that in mind, I want an HDTV that gives me the best value for my dollar. If PCW tests a batch of HDTVs and the top performing set (brand X) has a performance score of 85 and brand Y has a performance score of 80, but costs $1500 less, is it really worth the money to get brand X?
Talk Nerdy To Me--What do you think?
It won't matter if it's Dom, if all you can afford is Bud. Performance and quality is what you want, but when all is said and done, aren't you going to buy the one for which you can pay?
Whomever this peaved manufacturer is, they clearly don't get it. If the performance and other factors are comparable, then price is THE deciding factor. For some people, price may be single most important factor. The complaining manufacturer apparently sees their market as only people who don't have to worry about how much money they spend, and I know very few people for which this is an accurate statement of their financial affairs.
Update 2/28: Everyone's a winner! Just kidding. There can only be one Caption Crunch champion.
Last week, we posted this picture of Steve Jobs during this year's Macworld Expo keynote and asked you to submit your most creative caption ideas.
This Week's Winner
"Steve: Hey Bruce, have you heard about my new MacBook Air?
Bruce: No, does it play DVDs? I love watching myself in 'Die Hard with a Vengeance!'
Steve: No, but it fits in a manila envelope!" -- Coolin93
Touch?, Coolin93. Unfortunately, your prize for winning this week's Caption Crunch contest is not the MacBook Air. It's just plain air, which also fits in a manila envelope. But you're still a champion in our minds and hearts.
Check back next Friday for a brand-new installment of Caption Crunch. We'll see you then.
What follows is the original text for this Caption Crunch contest.
Welcome to the third exciting installment of Caption Crunch, the caption-writing contest that rewards its winners with a heaping helping of bragging rights.
This week, we're going back to this year's Macworld Expo, where Steve Jobs and the giant onscreen head of Bruce Willis exchanged a brief yet timeless glance during the Apple TV demo.
Got a caption idea for this photo? Give it your best shot in the comments section below. Next Friday, we'll pick a winner and post it in this spot.
If you've got a photo you'd like to submit for a future installment of Caption Crunch, just e-mail it to photosubmission@pcworld.com.
"And here we have a scene from the new movie "My Exciting Life" starring Bruce Willis as, well....me!"
"Steve... I'm trying to take a s**t here, do you mind? ..Wait-you don't have any toilet paper do you? No? cardboard? Anything? A shoulder to.. poop on?"
Steve-Hey Bruce have you heard about my new MacBook air?
Bruce-No, does it play dvds? I love watching myself in Die Hard with a Vengeance!
Steve-No but it fits in a manila envelope!
It's official: Gmail runs on a bunch of over-caffeinated Russian artists.
Exhibit A: This Russian commercial for Gmail shows that eastern Europeans can apparently access their e-mail in bold new ways offline. There are some downsides, though. You'll apparently need a case of energy drinks, the band Daft Punk's greatest hits playing around the clock and a squad of enslaved artists.
Gmail Live - Watch more free videos
(Obviously, this sings all the praises of Google, but still, without Russian speakers in the office, the voiceover is a mystery. Anyhow, the video starts off slow, but gets interesting about a minute in....so hang in there.)
We aren't sure exactly how much Red Bull the giant Web browser in the video requires to run. The only other foreseeable problem is now people might try googling on their sheets.
Wait, that didn't come out right.
Why don't you find somebody who speaks Russian before posting this pretentious junk. And yes, it is an ad, with voiceover describing all the "great features" of G-Mail
Pretentious? Really? Not exactly the vibe I was going for, Dim.
Eleven months ago, DivX launched the beta of Stage6 as a showcase for DivX-encoded content. And a showcase it was--my colleague Danny Allen found much to like about Stage6 when he reviewed it last year; it came in second in our Top 10 Video Sharing sites list.
With Stage6, DivX developed community around that content--ostensibly user-generated original content, but you could often find excerpts from broadcast television, including Doctor Who episodes. And the company says it tried to keep the site afloat, but in the end, the costs and resources didn't match DivX's own direction.
In a post on Stage6's blog, a company employee notes, "We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed...We couldn't continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high-quality video on any device."
Last summer DivX announced it was trying to market and sell a set-top box that would connect to your TV and tie into Stage6 content...and that effort apparently didn't take off. Presumbably, the concept of yet another extra box in the living room had limited appeal when shopped around to potential hardware manufacturers. (Color me shocked.)
But the failure of DivX to make a viable go of Stage6 underscores the
ephemeral nature of the Web. Sure, we still have AtomFilms and iFilm, but both are under the corporate umbrella of MTV Networks Entertainment Group. And phenom YouTube is under Google.
Companies make decisions that are best for companies, not for their users. So while I'd like to think that content archived on the Web can truly be considered as archived, what happens five years from now? Ten years from now? Will this content still be accessible--just like that novel you'd find in the library--or will it be gone, digital dust in the wind?
Stage6 admittedly never reached the heights of say YouTube, and never billed itself as an archive. But whither the content? Will it scatter to other sites? And will anyone ever find it again? And if they can't, is there a point to posting to begin with if all you're going to enjoy is the immediate hit today? All points to consider in this increasingly Web-centric world.
What do you think?
Actually, in regards to DivX's drive to market and sell a set-top box, I believe you are mistaken.
DivX has developed a technology platform called DivX Connected that is capable of being integrated into a variety of current home devices. D-Link was the first to release a DivX Connected product Europe in November 2007.
Since it is a platform and not an actual device the DivX is selling, technically that means that consumers won't have to buy yet another box....
Makes you wonder about the mantra - if there's a demand, there will be supply. Stage6 managed to convince a lot of people that "high" quality streaming video was possible with existing broadband infrastructure, and it managed to attract a significant number of active users. The outcome, I think, was that DivX really gained visibility as a brand and given the quality, a great degree of brand loyalty was cultivated. Shutting down with such short notice just points to how cheap loyalty has become. I would like to imagine that after this action committed users would just abandon DivX altogether. But that's not going to happen.
WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.... I loved Stage6 a lot better than Veoh.... =(
(Image courtesy of SaveTheInternet.com)
On Monday the FCC held a hearing in Massachusetts on Net neutrality after which Comcast was accused of hiring seat warmers to hold seats for Comcast employees. This erupted into controversy after it appeared to some that the seat warmers in fact did not give up their seats to Comcast representatives and instead appeared to be in place to block the public from entering the hearing. Perhaps there is nothing so wrong about hiring seat warmers, however when the seat warmers were found asleep during the hearing people started getting peeved.
(Here is a link, compliments of the FCC, to a video of the hearing.)
Now in the aftermath of the Comcast seat-warming storm, the metaphorical gavel is coming down on Comcast. First, New York State Attorney General Andrew Coumo was reported to have issued a subpoena for Comcast's records regarding P2P networks.
Continue reading "FCC Considers Hearing Do-Over in Light of Comcast Seat Hogging Charges"
Let me get this straight,
they blocked public access to a hearing... which was to see if
they blocked public access to the internet.
Do you see a pattern forming here?
Well I just canceled my Comcast account. DSL and dish is the only option for me. Until Comcast stops these tactics I suggest everyone else do the same.
From what I understand and what I see there are only 2 people who fell asleep during this and companies paying placeholders until their employees who support them get to these types of meetings is not new.
I'm going to switch to dish, wow, alien abduction microwaves!! Come on people do you think you've been duped somehow? Comcast came out and told everyone about the traffic shaping.
I'm all about net neutrality and keep things they way they are supposed to be but if you are deluding youself into thinking that no other company shapes their traffic so the bandwidth is actually shared then I can only shake my head.
I would rather have my bandwith than let someone who is downloading illegal software/movies/music etc.. slowing my connection down. This is more about pirate bing upset than anything else. Don't sugar coat it under a different guise.
Are plastic music CDs destined to join vinyl records as obsolete? Perhaps they already have.
Market researchers at the NPD Group report U.S. consumers spent 10 percent less on music in 2007 compared to the previous year thanks to declining CD sales and an up-tick in a la carte digital sold online at services like iTunes Music Store.
But a decline in CD sales isn't just be traced back to the fact more individual music tracks are being sold online. NPD says the use of peer-to-peer networks to illegally swap music tracks continues to rob the industry of music sales. The percent of the Internet population in the U.S. who engaged in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing reached a plateau of 19 percent last year, according to NPD. The bad news is the number of files each user downloaded increased and P2P music sharing continued to grow aggressively among teens.
Continue reading "Are Music CDs Already Passe?"
CD's are better than downloads. Also you can take a cd anywhere and make your own MP3brary and put it on any MP3 playey except an ipod. IPODS are way overated and limit you to where you can place the MP3's. No wonder why ipod sales are dramatically decreasing.
Personally, I buy a lot of downloads because it's the only way I can find the somewhat obscure music I want to listen to. However, while CDs may be obsolete, they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. And thank goodness for that! Libraries are the ultimate purveyor of free music, but the iTunes/Amazon/Napster/etc. business model is not copyrighted music but rather licensed content. Libraries cannot buy music downloads because they wouldn't be allowed to loan the music afterward. So for now, CDs it is.
The only CD's I purchase is at CD Exchange - And I am usually trading in more CD's than I purchase so thatbmy current CD library is shrinking, not growing.
Facebook profiles have always been relatively neat and tidy - at least compared to social networking sites such as MySpace. But, with the recent influx of applications added to Facebook, profile pages have started to become a bit cluttered. Facebook looks to remedy that with a new addition of tabbed profiles.
As soon as Toshiba announced its departure from the HD DVD market, we all knew the firesales were coming. Hop onto Amazon.com, and the inventory sell-off is in full swing: Movies at 50 percent to 60 percent off.
Tempting as this sale may be--most titles are in the $12 to $20 range--current HD DVD player owners may want to think twice about snapping up discs. Over time, you'll likely retire that obsolete player. When that happens, you're going to end up with a library of discs that can't be played on any other equipment (unless you buy another used player on eBay).
Continue reading "The Great HD DVD Sell-off"
Another person totally missing the awesome ness that was HD DVD. Most HD DVD movies are combo format. What that means? If you buy a Combo Format disk, IT WORKS IN BLU RAY PLAYERS and regular DVD players. Just turn the disk over, and you are in DVD world. What a concept!
HD DVD combo's were a horrible idea. As an HD DVD owner I don't want to pay $10 more for a format (DVD) that I don't have any intention of ever using. When it came down to $20 for a blu-ray or $30 for a HD DVD, I chose to feed the PS3 a blu-ray.
Also of note, Wal Mart has always favoried blu-ray over HD DVD. The Wal Marts I went to had a 4 foot section of blu-ray movies while HD DVD seemed always to be hidden on a hanging basket somewhere near the music section. I find it kind of hard to buy something I can't find.
I don?t agree with the author. For people who have HD DVD players, why will they retire them anytime soon? I just bought a HD DVD player after the fire sale. I don?t have a Blu Ray player and have no intention of buying one with the current prices. Now, I am buying favorite titles I find on HD DVD. I will be perfectly fine having a limited collection of HD DVD movies. The HD DVD player has replaced my older progressive scan DVD player and it works great for upconverting DVDs ? which I have a huge collection of. And who will buy re-buy their entire DVD collection on Blu Ray for $25 - $30 each. I have found great titles on HD DVD for $10. I will purchase a Blu Ray player in a PS3, but only when Blu Ray movies are cheaper.
Sony has announced its timeline for refreshing its Blu-ray Disc player line. At its product showcase today in Las Vegas, the company showed its BDP-S350 and BDP-S550 models. Sony showed prototypes at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, but they didn't announce a timeline or model numbers at that time.
The BDP-S350 will ship in the summer, and will cost $400; the BDP-S550 will ship in the fall for about $500. Both players will support Bonus View for viewing picture-in-picture content, both have an external port for adding local storage. Sony says the BDP-S350 is BD Live-ready; it has an ethernet port, but you will need to add your own storage, and do a firmware upgrade to add full support for this feature. The BDP-S550 will ship with 1GB of storage--as required for BD Live--and will not require a firmware upgrade to enable the interactivity features.
Both players handle 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD decoding and bitstream output, and DTS-HD Master Adio bistream output. The higher-end BDP-S550 adds DTS-HD Master Audio decoding as well as 7.1 channel analog audio output.
Bluray player and PS3 are practically the same.. only you can play video games on the PS3 and has large storage HDD... so in the long run the PS3 is cheaper than the Bluray player, because the PS3 has more things than the bluray and both cost the same
who in the world would pay thousands just to play a DVD it don't record
Just a projection....Prices will com down,,,Even better...Old players
will be cheaper too.
If you like to play Games then get PS3
If you just want to watch movies then get Blu-Ray player.
Enjoy the movie.....
Mac users and would-be switchers have been waiting months for a hardware refresh on Apple?s line of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, and today that wait has come to an end with the announcement of new machines with faster processors, more memory, and better graphics cards. But Apple omitted one key upgrade on these systems: the screens.
Yes, all of the new MacBooks come with brighter, more efficient LED-backlit displays, but not a single one of the new Mac notebooks gets a bump up in screen resolution from this refresh, leaving the entry-level MacBook line at a stagnant and underwhelming 1,280x800 pixel resolution and the pricey 15-inch MacBook Pro at a maximum resolution of just 1,440x900. Frankly, those dimensions are just so 2006.
Continue reading "Half-hearted Display Update Sours New Macbook Pro"
Notably, that system does not have Penryn, or an LED display, or a 512MB Graphics card, or Multitouch. The Dell does have a 2MP (from what I have admittedly only read, the iSight is 1.3MP), and as you have pointed out a larger resolution. I respect your right as a person to have your own opinion, however as a journalist I think that you are making much ado about nothing. I am not denying that Apple should increase the screen resolution. However to say that the lack of a screen resolution bump "spoils" the new Macbook Pros is absurd. And the use of the Dell laptop as an example seems ridiculous as well. THE MACBOOK PRO HAS 2X THE GRAPHICS MEMORY! Now, to ME, I would rather take the laptop with the more graphics memory then the one that seemed to be playing the numbers game, by cramming a higher resolution into what is essentially half the video card. Your article comes across (to someone who is aware of the numbers) as a use of rhetoric to a conversation piece into big news.
Outside of the dell sideshow, the point is it would be nice to have a better screen because the technology is out there and this is apple's top of the line notebook. Good point,
However, looking at the title again, I would spend more time talking about the real life difference for users that is program specific. That would help us decide if we think it would sour it for us
Apple has beefed up its line of MacBook and MacBook Pros this morning with three new MacBooks and three new MacBook Pros. Most notably, the upgrade sees more powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processors and 802.11n wireless networking. Also MacBook Pros get the multi-touch trackpad first seen on the MacBook Air and 802.11n wireless networking.
The MacBook upgrades include a 2.1 GHz model with a 120GB hard drive and 1GB of memory for $1,099. A 2.4 GHz MacBook with 2GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive is available for $1,299. And finally, a black 2.4 GHz MacBook with 2GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive is available for $1,499.
Continue reading "Apple Unleashes New MacBooks with Multi-Touch Trackpads"
The New York Times Company dives head-first into Web 2.0-world with a slick little tool for shifting notes, Web links, and addresses between computers and mobile phones. Called ShifD, this Web service is also a 1.0 Adobe AIR app - a platform released over the weekend by Adobe.
I tried out ShifD and like it. It's a handy utility that doesn't have anything to do with the The New York Times Web site or the newspaper. From what I understand the only thing in common between the NYT and ShifD are the designers. ShifD works with any sites and is worth using by mobile users looking to manage their digital lives.
A federal judge in Seattle, Washington has given a lawsuit filed against Microsoft over its "Windows Vista Compatible" labeling program an important thumbs up ensuring the case will move forward as a class-action lawsuit.
The gist of the case against Microsoft is this: during the 2006 holiday shopping season, before Windows Vista was released, computer manufacturers put "Windows Vista Compatible" stickers on XP computers. Those PCs with the stickers, according to Microsoft, matched the hardware requirements for a version of Windows Vista. The idea was, go ahead and buy this XP computer and you'll be able to upgrade to Vista when it becomes available.
The catch was that many those "Windows Vista Compatible" computers only fit the minimum system requirements for the most basic version of Vista (Vista Basic). Naturally, many customers who bought a Vista compatible PC were disappointed when they found that higher-end versions of Vista wouldn't run on their PCs. So mad was Washington residents Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen both joined forces and filed a lawsuit against Microsoft alleging the Vista capable stickers were misleading.
Continue reading "Lawsuit Over "Vista Capable" Labels on PCs Given OK by Judge"
well I see all most all of you think Microsoft did nothing wrong here. when in fact they did.I bought my mother a lap top for Valentines day for my father to give her (they are on budget & my dad wanted to give her one& I make good $) it had vista loaded on it.so you would naturaly think it would run A-OK. wrong- it is the slowest pice of crap there is.I latter bought & installed the max ram this Acer will accept,now it should be allright? wrong again.still a slow system (vista) so who is to blame here? Microsoft-Acer-or myself? now remember it came loaded & should run the OS.I am buying an XP OS to load for her and the heck with Vista.I might file a suit myself!!!!!! G4acre
Well my Gateway came with Vista installed... but it is a MESS!!!! Literally every click of my mouse takes 25 seconds to a full minute. It is slower than the 286 I owned 20 years ago!!!! And I have written to Microsoft and Gateway, but to get through to a real person means I have to spend more good money to chase the bad money I've already invested in this computer - with no promise of any real help! So I am not inclined to call their technicians. I don't feel I should pay for THEIR mistakes! Whether it's Gateway's mistake or Vista's mistake - I don't care - but neither of them will answer my emails - NO CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! But I did not buy a machine that was "Vista Compatible" and then upgrade... my machine CAME with Vista installed. So, it should be compatible with it. CAN I GET IN ON THIS CLASS ACTION SUIT????
I agree that Microsoft is the primary one to blame, but the computer vendors should also be facing a lawsuit.
The reason I think Microsoft is the primary one to blame is because they controlled what those "Vista Compatible" stickers said. They should have been more forward and also put the version of Vista it was compatible with on the sticker. In other words, they should have made a sticker/logo for each version of Vista so that the computer vendor could attach the correct sticker (or logo if on a website) for the computer advertised.
Computer vendors should also be held accountable by recognizing how misleading the existing stickers were and either: 1) not put the label on (not really an option as customers might think that it can't run Vista at all); or, 2) provide the customer with clarification of what is meant.
Either way, to blame the consumer is not the correct response as all the information they need to make an informed decision should be available at point of sale.
Following its CES and PMA announcements with a late surge of two new models, Sony today added to its 2008 digital camera lineup with new models in the Cyber-shot W and H series.
The just-announced Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 (above) is a titanium-coated ultracompact camera with a 13.6-megapixel CCD. According to Sony, that's the highest megapixel count for an ultracompact camera. The pocketable slim camera also has optical image stabilization, an underwater mode, and a 3x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens.
The DSC-W300 also includes Sony's Smile Shutter feature, which automatically takes a picture when selected faces in the frame are smiling. It joins the new DSC-W170 and DSC-W150 models announced earlier this year. The Cyber-shot DSC-W300 is slated for availability in May for $350, at the highest end of Sony's sleek W series.
Also new is Sony's DSC-H50 (above), a 9.1-megapixel camera that offers a 15x optical zoom and a fast shutter speed as its main drawing points. Sony says the H50's shutter speed can max out at 1/4000 of a second, coupled with a long-distance flash and fast-motion auto-focusing features that are aimed at action and sports shooters.
Also of note in the camera's feature set are a tilting 3-inch LCD screen, in-camera editing applications, Sony's Smile Shutter feature, as well as a slew of manual settings that may appeal to more skilled photographers. According to the press release, the Sony DSC-H50 will replace the Cyber-shot DSC-H9 and will be available in May for $400.
Nvidia and Intel have a mutually beneficial relationship. One company is a graphics card giant; the other, a premier CPU producer. What's interesting is that while they have a healthy respect for each other, both butt heads more often in the enthusiast motherboard space these days (enthusiasts refer to 'em as "mobos").
A problem that the two hardware-makers need to deal with, though, is the poor integrated graphics "solutions" on motherboards. In short, you buy a new PC, then find out that you cannot play games without buying and installing some sort of discrete graphics card (that runs you another couple hundred dollars). Then you go break something.
While Intel blazes SkullTrails with bleeding-edge motherboards, Nvidia fires back a shot of it's own mid-March by aiming a little lower.
More Vista flubs from Microsoft are surfacing, this time we are learning that Microsoft's Service Pack One (SP1) has a nasty side-effect of blocking third-party applications from working. More serious is the fact that some of these programs are security apps such as antivirus programs: Zone Alarm Security Suite 7.1, Trend Micro Internet Security 2008, and BitDefender 10.
Microsoft has put together a list of the 12 "programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based computer will either."
Continue reading "Vista SP1 Blocks Some Antivirus Programs"
I can't express in a few words what a P.O.S. Vista is. My Windows Mail program is unable to open attachments (and is an inferior POS compared to Outlook Express). My 2003 Office would not work so I converted to OpenOffice.org which is free and works fine. My old scanner does not work with Vista. My new Samsung digital camera can not download movie clips, and XP has a better download wizard. The Vista filing system was programmed by an idiot, I also prefer the XP search. enough!
I know that it is a bit unusual to see a comment like this in these pages, but I've had Vista Ultimate since getting a new computer in April and am thoroughly happy with it. So far the only problem I've had was that right after installing SP1-RC my OneCare v.2 quit and would not even reinstall. The OneCare people used Easy Assist for nearly a week every day until they finally told me that there was a conflict between it and the SP1-RC. I guess that must be why it was called a ?Release Candidate.? As soon as I uninstalled it the OneCare started working as it had previously. Though I haven?t actually been able to get anyone at either OneCare or Vista to confirm that the conflict has been resolved in so many words, the subtext of a few messages to them indicate that it has been. This time around the three prerequisites that are supposed to facilitate any necessary uninstall of SP1 have already arrived and installed uneventfully, so I'm willing to go ahead and see if the RTM will work.
I've used Vista Home Premium for several months now and love it. SP1 RC1 worked well so I installed the RTM when it came out. The only problem: I had to reinstall my touchpad drivers. Easy. BitDefender 2008 works fine and it didn't cost anything to upgrade from BitDefender 10.
My antivirus program has never reported Vista as a virus. Maybe the problems mentioned aren't with Vista, but with the antivirus programs involved.
The old scanner that won't work? Probably because the scanner mfg isn't bothering to update the drivers. Blame them. Windows Live Mail works great on Vista, and I've never not been able to open an attachment.
If you don't have the know-how to get Vista to function properly on your machine, stay with XP or use Linux.
T-Mobile is aiming to replace your land-line telephone service with a T-Mobile VoIP offering. Existing T-Mobile customers would pay an extra $10 a month under the new offering and get unlimited domestic local and long distance calls.
The biggest catch is only T-Mobile customers who have at least a monthly $40 or higher T-Mobile plan can take advantage of the offering. Also, the service requires a one-time fee of $50 for the service's required VoIP router. According to reports T-Mobile will be testing the service out in Seattle and Dallas - the first two test markets.
I'm intrigued by Microsoft's new strategy announcement today--but not for the reasons that open-source and Web-centric advocates may think.
Microsoft has long held a position of influence in the technology industry--by virtue of the company's dominant operating system business.
Call me an optimist, but I see potential in Microsoft's statement that the company has implemented "broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors."
When I read that, I immediately saw an opportunity here for Microsoft to take an industry-leading stand for consumers and businesses alike to address archival concerns about format compatibility over the long haul.
Continue reading "Microsoft's New Stance and Data Preservation"
What does "Posted by Melissa Perenson" mean? There are no other names here, so does this mean Ms. Perenson is also the author? Or just that some unknown person wrote this, and passed it off to a technician named Melissa Perenson to get it posted?
Three-and-a-half years after the release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, which boasted a slew of intensive fixes and tweaks for the OS, Microsoft is now preparing to let loose its final XP service pack.
The folks in Redmond just announced public availability of the second XP SP3 release candidate, and we took it for a test drive. What do we think of it? Meh.
In all fairness, Microsoft has been working for months now to temper expectations about this pack of updates, which consists primarily of previously released fixes now bundled together for convenience. Meanwhile, the few new features delivered in SP3 are likely to go entirely unnoticed by most users.
Enhancements such as improved detection of so-called black hole routers (which silently drop packets during operation) is likely to please net admins, but will get little more than a shrug from all but the most die-hard end users.
Same goes for the newly integrated Network Access Protection and support for credentials security service providers, both of which exist mainly to enhance networking functionality with the forthcoming Windows Server 2008.
If you?re not an IT manager and you?ve been installing your Windows XP updates each week like a good dog, there are really only two features in XP SP3 worth worrying about: one good, the other questionable.
Continue reading "Windows XP SP3: First Impressions"
Who cares about xp sp3? Just switch to Vista! I'm running Vista Home Premium on a 2 year old HP dv5000t w/ 1.86 ghz core SOLO processor, 2 gigs of ram (the only thing i had to upgrade, took 5 mins and $50), nVidia GeForce Go 7400 graphics w/ 128 mb ram. Vista runs so smoothly, runs all my apps, and does everything xp did, but better.No problems installing, everything was up and running in 4 hours, including dual booting xp (just in case). I've since replaced the xp with linux.
Be very careful of this release, I tried to installed xp sp3 canidate 2 on my system and it took over two hours ,not only was it bogging down the computer but,it created instabilities in all my app's. I finally gave up and restored it to just before the install.Thank but no thanks ,Microsoft....
Poor Microsoft can't catch a break. I'd ruthlessly bash 'em too, but I make a great living as a software developer targeting the Microsoft .NET framework, so I hope and pray that they do more good things than bad.
The hardware tracking in Vista and that's now going to be in XP, is a real drag for people like me who use VMWare. Sometimes moving a VMWare image from one machine to another (One of the big benefits of VMWare), causes Windows to cry out for reactivation. I can't imagine that this change will make that any better.
I'd also like to throw in my 2 cents worth regarding Vista. I have a new laptop that is running Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and it freakin' screams. It's waaay faster than my quad-core desktop running 32-bit Vista. My laptop now runs VMWare images faster than my desktop runs the native OS. My next goal is to bump my desktop to 8-GB of RAM and upgrade it to-bit Vista. I have Vista Service Pack 1, but am afraid to apply it, since my machine is running so great.
Reports suggest MySpace is getting closer to launching a free music service, but I can't help to question what the social networking giant is really bringing to the table.
A source told CNET that the service would be ad-supported and allow users to stream music and include a "Buy Now" option attached to each streaming song.
Big whoop, I say sarcastically.
PC gaming gets a bad rap. High-end game rigs cost thousands of dollars. Hardware and driver conflicts plague players. It's too much work just to have some fun. AMD agrees. So do Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft, Dell, Acer, Alienware, and a number of software developers that are finally sitting down at the same table to form the PC Gaming Alliance. Question is: can they do the job?
This nonprofit organization has noble intentions: To give a common voice and common goals to a huge and hugely disorganized platform. Industry forecasters say $2.67 billion in PC games sold in 2007. That discounts all those casual games that suck up your midday doldrums. For 2008, projections peak in the $9.6 billion range. About 263 million folks around the world play computer games.
But who are these people? "If you asked one of us the breakdown of who was playing these games right now, you'd get different answers from each company. It's tough getting a straight answer," says Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows. "Going forward we're sharing data and trying to solve problems together instead of on our own."
Microsoft knows all about going it alone. Its Games for Windows initiative has made some progress in the year since it launched, educating the masses and trying to create a unified player experience. But the road got lonely and sometimes rocky as Vista launched. Microsoft had to foot the bill for a whole marketing campaign to push a platform. Now, with a membership behind it, the PCGA hopes to tackle real issues. Eventually.
What can they hit first? Piracy and online security? The PCGA isn't providing software tools or enforcing laws. "We are NOT going to become the RIAA," says Randy Stude, director of the Gaming Program Office at Intel. While some of the people on the panel look to digital distribution, Mark Rein of Epic Games (developer of titles such as Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3) says shrink-wrapped boxes aren't going away--it's pricing that's the issue. Pirates won't pay no matter what. Stude suggests it may be time to consider the free-to-play models that have exploded in Asian markets. The point? There is no one, simple solution.
Continue reading "PC Gaming's Turf War"
Great article Darren, I think GFW radio needs ya more than anything right now! Shawn's off on a tear on 1up Yours finally giving the PC a voice. Of course you already know that, but it's good see your back to writing.
I have to say, I think this is a good thing for PC Gaming in general. Gaming journalism, besides PC centric magazines, are in large part ignorant of PC game sales and as a result, the PC never gets the respect it deserves. Having an organization that will funnel statistics and important information about that side of the industry is crucial, not that sales should be overly emphasized, but it's good for PR for the platform. This is huge, and it's like having the a marketing department for PC Gaming, finally. It's also good to see the Alliance came out and said they will NOT be the RIAA of PC Gaming. Advertising and educating the masses about the platform will garner more attention. Let's hope this works out.
Dozer! Thanks for the kind words and, yeah, all kinds of craziness at the old joint. Maybe I should commando raid a podcast. ;p
But about the topic at hand: I think that having proper representation for the space is key. The only information people know to track is NPD sales data. And that's about as accurate as trying to dowse for water. (no flames from dowsing readers, please). So you wind up with people reporting misconceptions. Now, if they exercised just a BIT of dictatorial control, maybe we'd get a remotely unified experience. As bad as driver issues are now, raise your hand if you remember life before DirectX?
Will the PCGA work? fingers crossed.
Total nonsequiter: Check out www.igf.com for some of the Indie Game competitors there's a LOT of great stuff you can play right now and it'll run on just about any computer.
Oh, and have a great weekend!
Darren: I do remember those days, playing on a 386 with MSDOS 6.22...Messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys and (as an 8 year old) crying with frustration trying to get games working.
The question is: What needs compatibility most badly?
Since day one, Universal Studios has been a stalwart upporter of the HD DVD format. Now that HD DVD is no longer in play, the company has acknowledged the shift and has said it will continue to champion the high-def cause--only this time around in support of Blu-ray Disc.
In a statement, Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Digital Platforms, says "the path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for hi-def?s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price."
He continued: "The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate. While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray."
I have to wonder about how quickly Universal will be able get titles into the pipeline, though. I already have heard a tale from a couple of sources that the existing Blu-ray production lines will be unable to handle the potential production needs of all studios at this time.
If true, that's going to mean the latecomer studios crossing over from the HD DVD camp may have to wait a while before they can jump into the Blu-ray Disc fray.
Call it karma. Call it odds. For the first time since Sony and Philips released the CD way back in 1982, Sony is finally one with the format that's come out on top: Blu-ray.
Sony jointly developed Blu-ray. The company--again with Pioneer--first showed the technology that evolved into Blu-ray back in 2000.
And Sony joined with nine other consumer electronics companies to formally introduce Blu-ray in 2002.
But Blu-ray stands tall amidst a heap of Sony format misstarts. Remember these?
1975: BetaMax (lost to VHS). The winning VHS tape is on top:
1991: MiniDisc (never took off due to expense, bulk). Here's what one looked like:
1993: Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (Dolby and DTS were already in the market, and SDDS ceased operation in 2002)
1998: Memory Stick (another flash memory format, Memory Stick is still prevalent in Sony point-and-shoot cameras, but never gained traction elsewhere due to the more established and more popular Secure Digital card and CompactFlash card formats.) Here's one:
1998: HiFD (High Capacity Floppy Discs held 150MB of data, but CD-Rs were more capacious at 650MB, and they quickly took over)
1999: Super Audio CD (developed with Philips as the successor to audio CD, but stalled in a format war of its own with DVD Audio)
2004: Universal Media Disc (designed for Playstation Portable, this mini optical disc could hold 1.8GB of data. But it held limited appeal, and flash media proved capable of storing content as needed).
2004: Hi-MD (a 1GB version of the Mini-Disc, Hi-MD was too little, too late)
Reports are pouring in saying that the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch's software developer kit (SDK) is nearing completion. The SDK will allow third-parties to develop and sell games, mobile utilities, and services for both the iPhone and iPod Touch through the Apple's iTunes Store.
I'm happy to hear things are apparently ahead of schedule for the SDK. Steve Jobs' initial deadline for release of the SDK is 10 days away.
Continue reading "Barrage of iPhone and iPod Touch Apps Coming Soon"
Apple is likely already working on capturing and aggregating user reviews and comments, like Amazon.com or Salesforce.com's AppExchange. These will provide some "real-world" guidance to users before they try or buy -- and may provide all the "control" that Apple needs to deliver, and that the iPod/iPhone faithful want...
I have recently blogged about from perspective of user and from developer perspective (in anticipation of SDK). Completely agree with medortch's comments on amazon/ebay like rating and reputation system integral-ness as their current model on web site is pretty lame (recommended, new, etc.). Potential backdoor into marketplace strategy for them. Very smart.
Check out the post if interested:
iPod touch: Take two -- http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2...ouch-take.html
Cheers,
Mark
I have recently blogged about from perspective of user and from developer perspective (in anticipation of SDK). Completely agree with medortch's comments on amazon/ebay like rating and reputation system integral-ness as their current model on web site is pretty lame (recommended, new, etc.). Potential backdoor into marketplace strategy for them. Very smart.
Check out the post if interested:
iPod touch: Take two -- http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/02/ipod-touch-take.html
Cheers,
Mark
At a board meeting today in Tokyo, Toshiba decided it would abandon the HD DVD format. A rival blue-laser optical disc technology to Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD was locked in a struggle with Blu-ray to become the next-generation heir to the booming $24 million DVD business (see our timeline of the format war). The format war stretched back to the year 2002, when backers of both formats unveiled their plans for blue-laser-based optical discs.
Toshiba's chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida, addressed assembled media in Tokyo after the board meeting during which the company pulled the plug on its HD DVD support. At the press conference, Nishida noted that the decision to pull out of the HD DVD market was a difficult one, "but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence."
Existing HD DVD players will continue to have support, says Toshiba, although for how long was unclear. (Even more unclear: How long Universal Studios might keep up its support of those nifty interactive features) introduced last year.
Toshiba did not announce any plans to produce its own Blu-ray drives, although it's impossible to imagine that the consumer electronics company will completely abandon the market for movie disc players.
Some historical trivia: HD DVD was initially introduced in 2002 as the Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) format. Toshiba and NEC together proposed this technology to succeed DVD by way of the DVD Forum, an industry forum for governing the standards of the current red-laser DVD technology. For years, that the DVD Forum approved the technology was presented as a strength of the HD DVD format over Blu-ray. (And, in the end, as I expected, it was Toshiba's withdrawal from the market--and not any announcement from the DVD Forum or the HD DVd Promotion Group--that marked the end of the HD DVD format itself. That underscores just how Toshiba was single-handedly propping up the the HD DVD format; without Toshiba's support, the format cannot, and has no reason to, exist.)
By contrast, the companies behind Blu-ray opted from the get-go to bypass the DVD Forum. Instead, Blu-ray's backers formed their own governing body to oversee the developmenet and implementation of the standard--much like the DVD+RW Alliance had done with its non-DVD-Forum backed DVD+R/RW format before it. Blu-ray was initially developed by Sony and Pioneer, but the technology has been championed from the outset by large consortium of consumer electronics companies.
The thing about Blu-ray has been its clear support within the industry from the start. At the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2006, Blu-ray Disc Association head Andy Parsons noted, "The legions of engineers who have been working on this is just astounding. I?ve never seen anything like it. Companies that usually duke it out--competitors--are working together."
Parsons, himself based at Pioneer, went on to say, "It?s been fun to watch it all come together." At the time of these comments, Blu-ray's technical spec had just been finalized.
Now, with Toshiba's announcement, Blu-ray's path is complete. And I can add that this has been one wild ride to observe.
I am happy that the war is over. I have been an HD DVD Supported from the start, even before HD DVD had officialy been released to the market. I am sad that I will not be able to afford a Blu-Ray disc player any time soon. Having both formats was driving prices down on both ends. Format conflicts are good to drive prices to a reasonable level. In the last two years, I have seen Blu-Ray players go from $800 to $399 because of their competition. Now that HD DVD is officialy phasing out of existance, we will not see any further price drops any time soon on BD. Only good news for HD DVD owners such as myself is that now, we will be able to get movies in HD DVD at a discounted price. Already, on line retailers are selling movies for as little as $11 with free shipping, and a lot of these movies, specialy from Universal Pictures, will take a while before they find their way to BD. So stock up on those HD DVDs, and don't buy a Blu-Ray disc player until the prices are reasonable, or get a PS3.
I am happy Also that this war is over. Even though i was too young to experience the BETA war only a couple Decades ago. I will be further excited to go to an electronic store once again and be able to select my favorite movie title from a single format. No longer will i have to say "Darn, that movie is only on HD DVD." Soon, all major motion picture companies that Opted to go HD DVD will have to follow suit of the winning format. I thought that this war would have drawn out a little longer but.... as for me and my PS3 so happy that this is over. hopefully BD prices stay reasonable.
How that Sony has won the war with Blu-ray format. Has anyone heard anything about Sony updating their DAV-IS10 home theater system to Blu-ray?
Randy
Verizon Wireless appears to be getting set to announce a variety of unlimited calling and data plans beginning February 19. Leaks of Verizon's plans come way of online advertisements that are popping up on Web sites such as USA Today and others.
Verizon Wireless has made no official announcement.
Continue reading "Verizon Appears to be Readying Unlimited Wireless Plans"
Each line costing $100 for a family plan? Thats absurd!
Right now you can get a two line deal of 4000 total minutes for $199. I can't imagine that 2 people, even teenage girls, could find the time to talk for over 33 hours each per month. Keep in mind the free nights and weekends and free calls to every Verizon customer that wouldn't could towards that 33 hours.
Now if it's $100 for the first line and $10 for each additional line then it's not a bad deal.
The worst part is they will most likely not cut the rates of lower plans. My wife and I have a hard time using all 700 minutes of our Verizon plan. And it's our only phones. I know I wouldn't mind a price break.
The format war is finally over, and Blu-ray has triumphed over the HD-DVD format. But what happens to all of those HD-DVD early adopters?
From the looks of Microsoft, one of the earliest adopters of HD-DVD, it's just time to move on. Rumors are already circulating about Microsoft is planning a Blu-ray add-on for its Xbox 360 console similar to the HD-DVD add-on that is already available.
UPDATE: Microsoft makes a statement in regards to HD DVD.
What a week. With announcements by movie rental company Netflix, Best Buy, and today Wal-Mart, the defections from HD DVD have been coming fast and furious. And with each new announcement of support for Blu-ray, HD DVD's fate appears sealed to become another disc format to join the annals of history.
Calling the current state of affairs for HD DVD a deathwatch is just a formality: That would imply that at some point, the plug will be pulled, and HD DVD will be no more. And indeed, Toshiba--the only volume manufacturer of consumer players--has yet to state outright that it will no longer manufacture HD DVD players (last known word from Toshiba: the company was "re-evaluating" its position).
One has to wonder just when Toshiba is going to make a call that it's lost enough money on the format. In the past, Toshiba has recorded approximately $300 to $400 million dollars per quarter to its HD DVD promotions; in its most recent earnings statement, Toshiba didn't mention anything about its HD DVD-related expenditures.
Just as Warner Bros made the decision that turned the momentum in favor of Blu-ray, Toshiba will ultimately make the decision that makes the call on HD DVD. Toshiba, not the HD DVD Promotion Group, which has for so long been stumping in favor of the format. Because if--once--Toshiba pulls support for the format, effectively, the format is done with. Currently, the dual-format players from LG and Samsung represent a mere 6 percent of the overall market. Microsoft's external HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 is an option no one will need if movies aren't coming out on HD DVD.
Should Toshiba decide to go with a dual-format machine, though, then this mess could drag on for however long Universal and Paramount choose to prolong it. Presumably, as I've written before, at some point market econonmics will require those movie studios to step up and offer Blu-ray Discs, because consumers will want it, and their shareholders will demand it. But those kinds of market economics remain a ways away.
Still, with both Best Buy and Wal-Mart (including the company's Sam's Club warehouse stores) ditching HD DVD, the economics of maintaining HD DVD at all are difficult to justify. Best Buy and Wal-Mart are retail juggernauts: Together, they represent more than 50 percent of the market, and Wal-Mart alone is the world's largest retailer. Without those companies behind a technology, it seems implausible that mass-market consumers will adopt a format.
I hear that the Wal-Mart announcement won't be the last big retailer statement in support of Blu-ray. I won't be surprised to hear more news to that effect in the coming weeks. Nor will I be surprised to see rock-bottom specials on HD DVD titles and players in weeks to come.
Just my opinion, but I'm beginning to get fed up with companies making technology that is not compatible with older technologies. So everyone who purchased a DVD player recently (home, portable and car) now will have to go out and buy another one to be able to play the Blu ray movies because places like walmart and blockbuster are now going blu ray only and you can't play a blu ray on a non blu ray player (if I understand correctly). I wasn't particularly enamored with DVD's (they scratch, they break, etc...) but dumped my VHS's which worked well,to buy several DVD players , which still works fine, to NOW have to go out and buy a BLU RAY? (so that in 3 yrs someone will make something else that won't play blu ray that everyone will say they only carry so that I have to buy something else. I think I'm becoming AMISH and they can invent all the new things they want to to make us keep buying.
In reaction to StanDup's Comment. The answer is NO you will not "have" to buy blu-ray discs. Blu Ray (and HD-DVD) are formats that outut Hi-Definition Picture and Sound. You only need to use Blu Ray Discs/Players on HD-TVs, because these TVs are able to accept the High Definition signal. If you play a Blu-Ray (or HDDVD) disc on a standard definition TV or monitor, you will notice VERY little difference in picture quality.
Your DVD's will always look and play fine on Standard definition TV's, and there will be a wide selection of Standard DVD's for many years to come.
Wal Mart and Other retailers will still carry regular DVD format discs for years to come, because there is (and will be) a huge demand for standard DVD format.
In reaction to StanDup's Comment. The answer is NO you will not "have" to buy blu-ray discs. Blu Ray (and HD-DVD) are formats that outut Hi-Definition Picture and Sound. You only need to use Blu Ray Discs/Players on HD-TVs, because these TVs are able to accept the High Definition signal. If you play a Blu-Ray (or HDDVD) disc on a standard definition TV or monitor, you will notice VERY little difference in picture quality.
Your DVD's will always look and play fine on Standard definition TV's, and there will be a wide selection of Standard DVD's for many years to come.
Wal Mart and Other retailers will still carry regular DVD format discs for years to come, because there is (and will be) a huge demand for standard DVD format.
Update 2/15/2008: We asked for your captions, and a few of you came through. Thanks to everyone who submitted entries for the latest round of our Caption Crunch contest.
This Week's Winner
"All the Pacemakers in this room are messing with my reception." - DannyA
Congratulations, DannyA, wherever you are... OK, we know where you are. You're in the cubicle right behind me.
DannyA is PC World associate editor Danny Allen. Yes, it's weird to have a PC World employee win a PC World contest, but since there's no prize other than bragging rights, who cares?
Can you top our editors' caption-writing skills? Try your hand next Friday, when we'll post a new pic and let you have at it.
What follows is the original text for this Caption Crunch contest.
Once again, it's time to flex your caption-writing muscles and come up with something clever.
This week's Caption Crunch contest photo is the perfect blend of analog and digital, old-school and new-school, ringtones and bingo.
The shot was taken by PC World Senior Applications Developer Al Bar with a Leica Digilux 2 camera.
Got a caption idea for this pic? Give it your best shot in the comments section below.
If you have photo submissions for future Caption Crunch contests, e-mail your photos to photosubmission@pcworld.com.
Winning numbers beamed straight to my Treo! I'm going to Disneyland.
"BING Oh why does my battery die so fast?"
I-phone 19 thats I-phone 19 ... BINGO!
Samsung announced that it would begin mass production of its lightning fast 64GB SATA II solid-state drives as an available option in Dell and Alienware laptops.
This announcement comes hot off the heels of the recent release of the MacBook Air, one of the few laptops that include SSD as an available factory-installed option. The 64GB SSD option on the MacBook Air tacked on a whopping $1000 to the price tag.
Continue reading "Dell to Use Samsung Solid State Hard Drives in Laptops"
FYI -- Dell was actually the first notebook manufactured to offer SSD as an option on several laptop models starting in April 2007. What makes this particular drive special is that it's performance will blow away any other SSD drive offered today. In fact our labs benchmarked this drive in a Latitude notebook and saw a 35 percent overall system performance increase over a standard 2.5-inch 5400rpm notebook hard drive using SYSmark ?07. That's even more impressive when you realize that the difference between standard 5400 rpm and performance 7200rpm drives (in the same generation) is 10 percent on average. And just for fun, we did a shootout between the new SSD and a few desktop drives and, well, let's just say that the performance gap is becoming a thing of the past. Preliminary tests showed that this drive outperformed a 10,000 RPM desktop drive in overall system performance! It?s coming soon on Dell Precision mobile workstations, and Alienware and XPS laptops. http://direct2dell.
It?s not exactly a secret that the Xbox 360 has seen some technical hiccups since its release. But really, how prevalent are the system failures? According to a recent report by site SquareTrade, a site responsible for dealing with product warranties, it?s pretty bad.
SquareTrade reports a 16.4 percent failure rate for Xbox 360 consoles. This number is much lower than the 33 percent claimed by retailers such as Best Buy and GameStop/EB Games, however it is still significantly higher than the failure rate of its competing systems which sits in the 3-5 percent range.
Continue reading "Xbox 360 Problems Continue in New Report"
The Red Ring of Death is most commonly caused by the GPU overheating. I remedied this on my 360 by opening up the console and re-applying new thermal grease. It fixed the problem.
I replaced 5 units so far, this is a joke along with the replacment of the units one was lost at the Texas repair location in which they took 2 months to replace. I am sick of this junk machine so I went back to a new PC.
Oklahoma State University on Tuesday joined a growing list of colleges and universities that have forked over student names to the Recording Industry Association of America in accordance with a court ordered subpoena.
The RIAA's subpoena is part of the music industry trade group's ongoing crusade against music piracy and file sharing on college campuses. In all, Oklahoma State gave the RIAA 11 student names to comply.
Continue reading "Oklahoma State Turns Over Student Names to RIAA"
The RIAA is clinging to a model of music distribution that grew corrupt and grotesque long ago. The so-called "music piracy" is actually the new model of music distribution just waiting for someone to figure out how to make money on it.
But, who cares? I say, go ahead and sue college students. It doesn't just alienate the ones you sue. It alienates the whole of your prime customer base.
And it hastens the demise of the major record labels, the RIAA, and all the creaky old models. That will mean a better world of music for everyone.
What I don't understand is why artists aren't moving away from the studios and starting their own distribution systems. They cut out all the middlemen, have zero label interference, and get much bigger profits. I think the RIAA sees the handwriting on the wall, these lawsuits are a last ditch effort to grab as much money as possible.
I agree with rixware and rkinne01, the RIAA is protecting a business model from the 1940s. Times have changed, technology has changed, and the user experience has changed in music. Instead of using their resources to hire lawyers and fund investigations, why couldn?t they hire some marketing geniuses to figure out a way to give people what they want and still make money from it? It?s ironic that an organization representing artists shows absolutely no imagination nor creativity.
After an outcry from it users who complained about how hard it is to quit Facebook, the company has caved to criticism and this week and made it easier for users to delete their accounts entirely.
Previously, the account deletion process was painstakingly slow and required a lot of manual work by the user. This process was also not documented by Facebook. Now, a message field is provided that will allow for users to quickly e-mail Facebook administrators requesting an account deletion.
Continue reading "Facebook Makes Ditching Service Easier, Finally"
this is very obvious and silly. "too" silly in fact.
The risk of getting a virus-laced Valentine's Day e-card is on the rise. The FBI has issued a warning about cards carrying the Storm Worm virus.
It may be due to the fact that Valentine's Day is a giant holiday for greeting cards, or it may be because people as a whole are getting very lazy and cheap, but the use of e-cards is on the rise. This provides a perfect opportunity to spread malware.
The Storm Worm is one of the big viruses that is eager to exploit your love, lust, and laziness to attack computers. It comes by way of an e-card that requires the recipient to download the card, which happens to be malware.
Continue reading "A Valentine from the Storm Worm Virus"
With the coming of the holiday, you may start getting some ecard spam. Here is a brief refresh on ecard safety.
A legitimate ecard email will include the name of the sender in the email subject and the email body (with the email address). Some ecard site allows customization of the email subject by the sender. But the sender name and email address should always be in the email body. If you don't recognize the name or the email address, then delete it.
In addition, you should always have anti-virus/anti-spyware application installed on your computer.
You can get the free security applications here.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Spyware Doctor and Norton Security Scan from Google Pack (or search on "Google Pack")
Also you can also install free McAfee SiteAdvisor that will warn you if you are visiting suspicious/bad websites.
As usual this advice is wrong. You are much more likely to get a virus laden email from someone you KNOW not someone you don't. Most viruses send from the users address book. I can't believe after all these years writers still get this most basic fact wrong.
RIM just sent us this update on why its BlackBerry service went dark for users on Monday. According to RIM's preliminary investigation, the service outage was due to "an internal data routing system within the BlackBerry service infrastructure that had been recently upgraded.
The upgrade was part of RIM?s routine and ongoing efforts to increase overall capacity for longer term growth. RIM continuously increases the capacity of its infrastructure in advance of longer term demand. Similar upgrades have been successfully implemented in the past, but there appears to have been a problem with this specific upgrade that caused the intermittent service delays."
The company is quick to point out that no messages were lost in the outage, and that the system continues to operate normally today. A full analysis of the problem that caused the outage is ongoing.
While some observers are slamming RIM for its second nationwide service outage in the last year, I think it's important to note that service blips are an unfortunate by-product in this service-oriented digital age. Google Calendar has been victim; so too have countless ISPs (fess 'up--when did your cable or DSL last hiccup on you, be it for 20 minutes or 20 hours?). This is not to excuse RIM's issues: The fact that the company notes it was performing the initial upgrade to help increase overall capacity for the long-term is notable simply because it acknowledges that capacity is a concern. Of equal concern to BlackBerry users, though, is how RIM addresses such issues, how the company recovers from them, and what safeguards it puts in place to prevent them from happening again. I, for one, will be watching closely.
Apple's update for its Apple TV (Take 2) is now available for download. The anticipated update--first announced at Macworld in January--improves the interface of Apple TV and adds movie rentals, in both standard and high-definition. The standard-def movies will rent for $2.99, while new releases will rent for $3.99. HD titles will cost $1 more.
Finally received this statement from RIM, but sadly, it doesn't offer up any further explanations to yesterday's BlackBerry service outage.
"RIM is continuing to investigate the exact cause and we will provide you with additional information as soon as we are able to verify the events that prompted the interruption. We appreciate your continued interest in BlackBerry and will keep you informed of any updates."
That the company is still researching the cause the day-after is a bit worrisome, given how many users rely on their service.
Apple has announced and released an update to its professional photo editing and management software, Aperture, with Aperture 2. Aperture 2 is touting more than 100 new features and a completely new image processing engine that allows for more efficient fine-tuning of RAW-format images.
(Aperture 2 makes it even easier to quickly and easily publish photo to a .Mac Web gallery. It's as simple as selecting the desired photos and clicking on publish.)
Of course, Aperture has always come in second place to Adobe's Photoshop, but this latest update sounds like Apple is taking drastic steps to try and compete with Adobe.
Continue reading "Apple Updates Aperture Photo Software: Lowers Price $199"
BlackBerry users at PC World reported at about 4:30 PST that their service is back after a three-hour outage here in San Francisco.
The service was out for a great deal of the day in parts of the U.S. and Canada.
Updated 6:18 p.m. Zenprise, a company whose service-management software troubleshoots for BlackBerry environments, reports that the cause of the RIM outage has yet to be determined, but a company spokesperson did offer some insights on what's happening. According to Zenprise, two IP address paths in North America connect into the RIM network.
Zenprise's diagnostic tests showed that one IP address
was refusing connections to come through, causing enterprise users to be impacted; users of the working IP would not have been affected, and if your service has been intermittent, that could be explained by a switch between the two IP addresses.
Are you back in business?
It's thrilling to be in Barcelona for any reason, and it's exciting to be at the huge Mobile World Congress any year. But the event is particularly newsworthy this year for several reasons.
1. The iPhone factor. I haven't seen an Apple booth, but the iPhone's influence is apparent everywhere. Almost every cell phone vendor is showing one or more touch-enabled handsets, displays are getting bigger and bigger, and several new mobile browsers are competing with established ones (such as Opera) to bring desktop experiences to tiny handsets.
I'm also seeing lots of amazing video capabilities (AMD showed me a roomful of impressive technology demos using their chips), navigation features (in Nokia's 6220 Navigator and Garmin's Nuvifone, for example), and at least one new visual voicemail offering (from Simulscribe, which has created an app for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile handsets).
2. Google's Android mobile phone platform. Everybody's talking about the prototypes sprinkled around the show floor (see IDG News correspondent Peter Sayer's report on Android). I spent a couple of hours trying to track down a demo, and finally found one at the Texas Instrument booth--but it lacked a SIM card so it wasn't great. Still, along with other Linux-based phone operating systems, it promises to shake up the handset landscape. Here's my photo of that TI prototype.
3. WiMax is coming. There are lots of prototypes for this 4th-generation technology that promises to eclipse today's mobile broadband network with Wi-Fi like speeds. Sprint is carrying the torch for WiMax in the U.S., but the rollout has been slow. However Samsung, Motorola and others are showing or announcing WiMax products.
4. Microsoft dramas. Yahoo may have turned Microsoft down, but Danger didn't. At its news conference Monday, Microsoft announced it has agreed to acquire Danger, makers of the cult-favorite HipTop (a.k.a. Sidekick) handsets.
Microsoft also showed off a cute new widget-like app that puts MSN Direct content (mostly news headlines and weather) on the home screen of Windows Mobile devices. Clicking eventually leads you to full versions of the content on the Windows Mobile version of Internet Explorer.
I've already installed the beta (a free over-the-air download from MSN Direct's Web site) on a Motorola Q9 Global handset, and it's fun to see what pops up on the screen (I frittered away some time reading about the McCartney-Mills divorce proceedings today).
On the other hand, the MSN Direct box did push down some content, such as my appointments, that probably should have been higher up on the display. Here's a screenshot (courtesy of Microsoft) showing what the new MSN Direct app looks like on the Windows Mobile home screen (on their handset you can still see your appointments).
I'll be filing more news from MWC over the next couple of days.
If your BlackBerry hasn't buzzed with your latest e-mail missives in a while, there's a reason for that: The popular messaging service was hit Monday with a service outage that cuts across "The Americas" (which includes the U.S. and Canada) and across all carriers.
Based on early Web reports, the outage may have begun in the afternoon; but, little as of 6 p.m. Eastern little information was available; Research in Motion was unavailable for comment. This outage follows on another outage the service endured over the weekend.
Continue reading "Is Your RIM BlackBerry Working Today?"
No browsing capabilities right now, but am receiving yahoo emails on my BB though emails are super slow.
Portland OR
Talked to a friend in Washington, D.C, who uses the BB service via a corporate server and Sprint. He was not experiencing any problems. Got an email on the BlackBerry 2 min. after I sent it.
A double whammy today for HD DVD backers. Earlier today, Netflix announced it would cease stocking new HD DVD titles. Now, Best Buy has gotten on the Blu-ray bandwagon, too. According to a report in Twice, Best Buy will actively showcase Blu-ray hardware and discs in stores; the company stated this move is in line with the format its customers want, but it did not state it would stop selling HD DVD discs and hardware.
A retailer like Best Buy wields tremendous power in the consumer electronics industry. In the case of today's Netflix and Best Buy announcements, I simply see further signs of format war fatigue: That the HD DVD format continues to plug away, drawing out consumer confusion, is, I'd imagine, a source of frustration for retailers. I fully expect that Best Buy's move won't be the last we hear of along these lines.
It's been just over a month since Warner Brothers threw its weight behind Blu-ray Disc, and watching the high-def format war has been much like watching dominoes fall, all in quick succession.
The momentum behind Blu-ray just continues to grow. The latest blow strikes HD DVD: Netflix has announced that it won't be carrying new HD DVD titles. The movie rental service says it will stock Blu-ray discs instead of HD DVD titles (existing titles already in inventory will be phased out by the end of year).
According to Netflix, "a majority" of its subscribers that requested high-def titles picked Blu-ray, not HD DVD. Netflix's decision echoes Blockbuster's choice last year to support Blu-ray over HD DVD in its stores. The company also cites growing industry support for one format--Blu-ray--and notes how supporting one format going forward will help provide better experiences for consumers. (That latter point, of course, only applies if you're not among the consumers who already invested in HD DVD.)
The Netflix announcement comes just a week after Toshiba's splashy $2.5 million Super Bowl ad supporting HD DVD. Neither Toshiba nor Microsoft have pulled the proverbial plug on the format, but news like this can't be encouraging to HD DVD's backers.
More to the point, news like this will not be well received by the two major studios that remain part of the HD DVD camp--Paramount Home Entertainment (including Dreamworks Animation) and Universal Studios. If outlets like Netflix stop carrying their films, that's lost revenue to the studios. Studios who have shareholders to account to. I imagine both companies have contractual obligations to stay with HD DVD. Paramount--which switched to HD DVD last summer--reportedly has an escape clause that could be triggered by the changing tide in the format war. Some insiders thought the Warner deal might trigger it, but Paramount came out swinging for HD DVD immediately after that announcement. Still, the Netflix announcement does make me wonder what it will take for Paramount to break free of HD DVD: Will it be the cumulative effect of the pro-Blu-ray announcements, or will the company just bide its time until the end of the year, when--if insider rumor mills are to be believed--the contract would run out?
In one way, perhaps waiting would be smart move for Paramount--if the company were to quietly ready a deluge of titles for release on Blu-ray when the time was right. Thus far, Paramount has not been, shall we say, at the forefront of the high-def release schedule: Amazon.com lists just 43 HD DVD releases from Paramount, while Universal has more than three times that number of releases. What better way to show commitment to the next generation than to jump in with both feet?
With current sales 3:1 in favor of Blu-ray and likely to jump now with the Netflix announcement, not publishing in Blu-ray is a plainly poor business decision. Investors would definitely be up in arms.
Netflix made a great decision!! HD-DVD is clearly the dead format, why should they continue wasting money on it?
Google's Android mobile platform will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress, formerly 3GSM, on a Texas Instruments-powered handset, according to news reports. TI is one of the many manufacturers backing the linux-based platform and the first to show a working model to the public at the telecommunications trade show.
Android has received iPhone-like buzz since its original announcement back in November and now we are one step closer with actual handsets running the open-source mobile platform.
Continue reading "Google Android Phone Prototype Surfaces"
Apple is going to blow their big chance.
With their historic mindset, expect Apple to own only a tiny fraction of the mobile market. Apple is too closed ? they only put their OS on Apple hardware ? but in Mobile, there?s far too many competitors. (Imagine if Mac computers competed against 4 other OS?s in the PC space ?- each far more ble to innovate and learn from Apple?s success than Microsoft. What a world it would be!) But unlike the PC space, Mobile has dozens of competitors, wildly innovative, learning and copying, releasing products annually, and covering divergent prices and styles.
Read the excellent analysis at http://www.broodingsavage.com
Yahoo just can't seem to stay out of the news. On the heels of news Yahoo declined Microsoft's merger bid reports say that Yahoo is seeking a merger of its own. According to those reports Yahoo is now looking to restart talks with Time Warner to buy AOL.
A proposed AOL buyout is seen as a move by Yahoo to raise its stock prices and reaffirm stockholder trust in the company. Yahoo has suffered dropping profits for the past eight consecutive business quarters, and the recently rejected Microsoft offer valued Yahoo at 62 percent above its current market value. It is suspected that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang hopes an AOL buyout will be the first of many moves to boost Yahoo stock prices. But he has a long way to go, because it's doubtful that AOL alone will boost Yahoo stock as much as 62 percent.
Microsoft's decision to delay the rollout of Vista SP1 to consumers and manufacturers until March isn't going over well with Vista users who want it now.
The Windows Vista Blog, where the Vista SP1 availability was originally announced is being hit with hordes of posts by Windows users lashing out at Microsoft for waiting to release SP1 a month. On February 4 Microsoft announced Vista SP1 was complete, but it would be available to existing Vista users until mid-March.
Continue reading "Rollout of Vista SP1, Not Fast Enough Customers Decry"
I could comment better, but my new Vista computer sits still in the box waiting for SP1 to happen.
Yo, Mac dudes, like, GET AN ABACUS, MAN!! We're talking, like, serious computational powerage, man. Like, get high, and, like, move the beads back and forth, and, back and forth, and, back and forth - it's like a higher plane of existence, man. I sold my Mac and am so well-fully chill about life now with my abacus, dudes. Me and my abacus, like, I AM my abacus, man. Oh yeah, man.
Hot on the heels of last week's QuickTime 7.4 update, Apple has now released version 7.4.1. The update "addresses security issues and improves compatibility with third-party applications," according to Apple.
The third-party app in question is Adobe After Effects, with which there have been previous issues. The complaints stem from the fact that QuickTime 7.4 checks for DRM violations at regular intervals, while Adobe products don't write DRM headers until after a video has finished rendering. QuickTime 7.4.1 fixes this issue, which is detailed in technical jargon on an Apple support page, finally allowing After Effects users to get back to work.
The new update is available for Mac OS X 10.3.9, Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later, Mac OS X 10.5 or later, Windows Vista, and Windows XP SP2.
A new low has been taken in the world of online viral video with the launch of KeepItInYourPants.org, a site that uses sexual innuendos, puns, and plays on words to educate the youth about debt, or "debt disease" as the site's writers like to put it. Take a look at one of its graphics:
The site is sponsoring a video contest that will award $5,000 for the best public service announcement regarding credit card debt.
Pardon my lack of excitement about credit card debt awareness, but I am still in shock about the sexual parallels the sponsor of this Web site, the Service Employees International Union, has decided to use.
Continue reading "How Low Can the Web Go?"
Nice topic
Thanks
I have found two interesting sources http://fileshunt.com and http://filesfinds.com and would like to give the benefit of my experience to you.
Google Apps is a cool way to collaborate on documents with co-workers and share calendars online. But up to now, you've had to go through the hassle of associating Google Apps with your domain if you wanted to have a set of documents and calendars just for you and others at your company. Today Google's launching a free service, Google Apps Team Edition, which lets you set up your company's Google Apps universe just by entering an e-mail address.
Here's how it works, according to the Google reps I talked to (the service wasn't live yet, which is why the art here is from Google's presentation). You go to google.com/apps and sign up with your work e-mail address.
You can create documents and calendars and invite other people in your company to join Team Edition. As long as their e-mail address is in the same domain, i.e. pcworld.com, they're added to your Google Apps Team. In fact, anyone who signs up for Team Edition from your domain is automatically added to the group, even if you didn't invite them.
When you decide to share a document, you'll be able to choose from a list of all the people from your domain who have signed up. Or you can publish the document for anyone on your domain to see.
Continue reading "Google Makes it Easier to Share Documents with Co-Workers"
Test comment
Yes, Google is moving in the direction indicated by the march of technology. I.e. the de-mystification of IT. Other firms giving Google company in in the in-the-cloud computing is MS LIVE, Zoho, and eDeskOnline.
I remember reading that if you had the Google toolbar installed, essentially Google can monitor where you go and what content you take-in online. I see little reason why this practice would change, if not become a nuisance. Knowledge is power.....the information that they glean is priceless...........
Beginning in May, unfavorable experiences with problematic buyers will go unnoticed as eBay eliminates the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback on buyers. This decision by the online auction house is receiving a lot of negative feedback from the millions of eBay buyers.
One of the reasons behind eBay's decision is to prevent and disallow buyer's remorse, or retaliation against sellers. When a seller leaves negative feedback towards a buyer, the buyer can often be motivated to leave negative feedback towards the buyer, regardless of if they deserve it. Sellers whose entire life revolves around selling on eBay have said that they are scared to leave negative feedback for buyers, for fear of retaliation that can harm their image and business.
Continue reading "EBay Ditches Negative Buyer Comments"
The root of the problem with eBay is that the respect it has for its sellers is akin to a lord spitting on the face of his faithful dog. This is a corporation that treat the people that bring in its bread and butter and honey, worse than the lowest orders of society. They bring in people to head up their company who exist on fat salary checks and bonuses and then resign when they have had their fill on the blood and sweat of so many who have dedicated their lives to building ebay to where it is today. They garner in their enormous fees and give absolutely nothing back, no recognition at all to the ebay sellers who provide outstanding performances and 18 hour work days, except insult after insult. They want to bring back the buyers but dont realise that it is the sellers who make this Titanic sail. Shame on you.
I believe the above comments are very well based. Ebay isn't what it used to be. I wish you guys would make an article about alternatives we could look into. My wife and I are boycotting eBay. We are small time sellers that used to enjoy watching the bids come in. (I don't see any fun in worrying about the many scam buyers that eBay is infested with.) I really hope you continue this article with the errors corrected.
This article is seriously flawed starting with the title. It is the negative feedback from the SELLERS that is being disallowed.
CBS is stepping up its mobile ad strategy with a plan to deliver location-aware mobile ads to cell phones. The New York Times has an interesting report today about CBS and its plans to provide location-specific mobile advertising to people accessing the CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports Web sites on their cell phones.
According the Times the CBS mobile ad campaign will work like this: say you're walking down the street checking CBS Mobile News on a shiny new iPhone, and there?s a Starbucks a couple blocks away. When you check CBS Mobile News, the ads will be primarily Starbucks ads.
Facebook has added a feature that allows you to recommend friends to other friends. Facebook users, like myself, noticed the new feature when it appeared on user accounts recently. As of this morning Facebook hasn't officially introduced the service nor does it mention the friend recommendation feature on its blog.
The small option was added to the Email Notifications Account Settings that allows you to turn on and off e-mail notifications "when someone: Suggests a friend to me." (see pic above) Despite that line, I could not find a way to easily suggest friends for my other.
Continue reading "Facebook Adds Suggest-a-Friend Feature"
I recently noticed the feature when I added a friend who was "new to facebook." Immediately after adding them, facebook said "so and so is new to facebook, write on their wall, etc., suggest a friend."
I like the notion of suggesting a friend to new people to accelerate people into the internet. Wow, that too is kinda creepy.
But, if you see two close friends, and notice they're not friends with each other, when in real life they are, why not be able to suggest a friend?
Apple has doubled the capacity of both its iPhone and iPod Touch allowing new customers to spend $100 more and get twice the storage for music, movies, pictures, and podcasts than available with previous models. Introduced today, the 32GB iPod Touch sells for $499 and the 16GB iPhone goes for $499.
Pricing on existing iPod and iPhone models stays the same. But if you're in the market for a new iPhone or iPod Touch, spending $100 more to double your capacity is a pretty good deal.
Of course the larger capacities may rile some existing iPhone and iPod Touch users as was the case when Apple dropped the price of the iPhone.
Continue reading "Apple Doubles Storage Capacity of iPhone, iPod Touch"
I really dont see how this is "Apple Bashing" MAC is known for coming out with something "better" only months after the initial release! If it wasnt a problem then everyone wouldnt complain about it, plus you dont think they didnt have the ability to put more memory in the iPhone 8 months ago? Dont be so nieve as to think that the "technology" was not there 8 months ago! Apple loves to screw the MACites over and over again cause Apple is God right!! Go sip your Latte and sit in front of your fire and play around with your MAC Book Air, just dont sit to long, cause you cant put another battery in it!!
I really dont see how this is "Apple Bashing" MAC is known for coming out with something "better" only months after the initial release! If it wasnt a problem then everyone wouldnt complain about it, plus you dont think they didnt have the ability to put more memory in the iPhone 8 months ago? Dont be so nieve as to think that the "technology" was not there 8 months ago! Apple loves to screw the MACites over and over again cause Apple is God right!! Go sip your Latte and sit in front of your fire and play around with your MAC Book Air, just dont sit to long, cause you cant put another battery in it!!
I really dont see how this is "Apple Bashing" MAC is known for coming out with something "better" only months after the initial release! If it wasnt a problem then everyone wouldnt complain about it, plus you dont think they didnt have the ability to put more memory in the iPhone 8 months ago? Dont be so nieve as to think that the "technology" was not there 8 months ago! Apple loves to screw the MACites over and over again cause Apple is God right!! Go sip your Latte and sit in front of your fire and play around with your MAC Book Air, just dont sit to long, cause you cant put another battery in it!!
Opera Software has become the latest in a growing group of companies announcing new tools to deliver PC-like--or at least iPhone-like--browsing on cell phones.
Opera Mobile 9.5, the latest version of Opera for smartphones, introduces a new user interface, the ability to pan and zoom on Web pages, and support for Opera Widgets, little applets that pull together content from various Web sources.
Other features include support for Flash Lite 3 and the ability to send Web site images and text via SMS or MMS. Opera also claims its new mobile browser is significantly faster than the Windows Mobile version of Internet Explorer.
Opera introduced many of these features in Opera Mini for feature phones, but Mini depends on server-side processing. Opera Mobile 9.5 uses the power inside today's smartphones--no server-side help is required.
Opera says Mobile 9.5 will be available for Linux, Windows Mobile, and the UIQ platform. The company didn't say exactly when beta versions of Opera Mobile 9.5 would start to appear, but I and other attendees at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, will get a closer look at demos there.
Meanwhile, here are some screenshots. The first shows how Opera Mobile 9.5 renders CNN as a full page on a small screen:
When in full-screen mode, menus pop up when you tap a transparent icon in the lower right-hand corner:
Opera Mobile 9.5, like its predecessors, supports tabbed browsing. You can create and select tabs from a pop-up menu, accessed from the small taskbar that appears at the bottom of the screen in standard viewing mode:
This last screen shows how you'll be able to send text or images from Web pages as SMS or MMS messages:
Want more? You can view a video demo of Opera Mobile 9.5 on Opera's Web site.
Improved browsing is shaping up as the next big thing in cell phones. At last week's Demo conference, another full-featured mobile browser called SkyFire got a lot of attention, and I expect to see more at Mobile World Congress.
Yahoo is scrapping its Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription service, replacing it with RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service. According to both Yahoo and RealNetworks the process of transferring subscriptions from Yahoo Music Unlimited to Rhapsody will start mid-year and will be painless.
Existing Yahoo subscribers will be able to maintain their Yahoo pricing tiers for a limited, though undisclosed, period of time. RealNetworks' Rhapsody To Go is priced at $15 a month and Yahoo Music Unlimited is priced at $9 a month.
Continue reading "Yahoo Partners with RealNetworks to Replace Yahoo Music Unlimited"
Hey Scott - good write up - bad news. I'm surprised that Yahoo would so willingly abandon it's unlimited music program (only recently acquired from Music Match, if memory serves). Yahoo music users having to do with Real Player is the big bad of this whole deal - most techies can't stand the program, and it would take a lot of pr and a couple of years of good faith (not to mention a total redesign of Real Player) to change that!
I've written a followup article about this, including comments from Yahoo customers at our chaseandsam.com site. Here's the link: http://chaseandsam.com/2008/02/yahoo-closing-down-popular-music-unlimited-service-to-merge-with-realplayer.html
(feel free to edit it out and keep my comment, if you need to)
Windows Vista Service Pack One is ready to ship, Microsoft says. PC manufacturers and consumers can expect the update in March. Microsoft has said that SP1 includes Vista OS improvements including reliability, security and performance. For a first look at those improvements read PC World's review of beta SP1.
Unlike some of the reports and speculation from last week, Vista SP1 is not officially available today. Microsoft said that it will be available to new volume licensing customers beginning March 1. Existing Vista consumers will have to wait until mid-March, Microsoft says, when the download becomes available through Microsoft's Windows Update Web site. Windows Vista users who have their systems configured to receive automatic updates will get SP1 automatically delivered in mid-April, Microsoft says.
Continue reading "Vista SP1 is Complete, Update Available in March"
As if Vista doesn't have enough problems, Microsoft now makes it somewhat of an inconvenience to the users to get the update. That's one thing that makes me glad I just haven't yet even bothered with Vista.
I know, I know, a lot of people are using it trouble-free and love it, but me, I just am not ready to deal with the potential hassle...especially at its price. The reviews and experiences have been too mixed for my comfort.
So a March general release means SP1 will actually be usable and stable for September...
Is in any wonder then that my little ASUS eeePC running its default Linux is getting a lot more use than I originally anticipated - while my 'fully-featured' Vista HP notebook languishes...?
First let me say that the views I express here are my own and not that of PC World or any of its employee's
That being said, they (Microsoft) should have stopped at Windows 98 SP2 and just continued to improve that, instead of bringing out a new OS every time someone has a brain fart that they figure they could profit from. I never liked XP until it came out with SP2 and I absolutely HATE Vista. Unfortunately, Since I had to buy a new computer and it came pre installed with Vista, I am stuck with it until I can get out and buy a floppy drive (I?m disabled so it's harder to do than it sounds), so that I can install the SATA drivers by floppy and revert back to XP SP2. My system didn't come with a floppy drive because the "geniuses?" that built it, didn't see a reason to include one.
Don't buy a system that doesn't include a floppy drive (A:) until Microsoft can figure out how to make a CD rom drive as Drive A:\
Just in case anyone else is browsing around on a Sunday afternoon, here's a link to the official Google blog entry commenting on the potential impact of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal.
Posted a few hours ago by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, it's more or less what you might expect Google's position to be: The merger, Drummond says, is more than just another big corporate deal: it threatens "the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."
Drummond references the Microsoft antitrust case, notes the huge combined Internet presence of the two companies, and poses the question: "Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?"
Clearly such a merger would pose a major threat to Google as a business, and the alarmist tone of the comments might be a little over the top. But I don't think anyone wants to see fewer Internet titans competing and innovating. For more analysis on the week's big story, see my colleague Tom Spring's thoughts on the possible impact of a Microsoft-Yahoo merger and PCW Editor in Chief Harry McCracken's take on the deal.
Lately, I have been reading more articles on Microsoft's numerous new directions and ventures then Vista articles...and certainly more than XP issues tha seem to be backburnered by the company despite, what I understand, to be rether strong sales. Remarkable for such an ancient OS. Considering the going price of XP which is often found to be higher than old Vista's, I find Gates & Co.'s conued arrogance and disregard foward its core base customers runing XP even more baffeling (and irratating).
I wonder, given the blacklash against Microsoft ; why doe this company continue turn a blind-eyeto what its customers are saying and demanding other than its own greed and culture of invincability. Substiation of this premise is reinforced lwith Microsoft news (pr) releases and well-constructed blogs that seem to be the work of seechwriters tha by the individual authoring the blog.
I thind we need to run the "CrapCleaner" utility on everything Microsoft !
Lately, I have been reading more articles on Microsoft's numerous new directions and ventures then Vista articles...and certainly more than XP issues tha seem to be backburnered by the company despite, what I understand, to be rether strong sales. Remarkable for such an ancient OS. Considering the going price of XP which is often found to be higher than old Vista's, I find Gates & Co.'s conued arrogance and disregard foward its core base customers runing XP even more baffeling (and irratating).
I wonder, given the blacklash against Microsoft ; why doe this company continue turn a blind-eyeto what its customers are saying and demanding other than its own greed and culture of invincability. Substiation of this premise is reinforced lwith Microsoft news (pr) releases and well-constructed blogs that seem to be the work of seechwriters tha by the individual authoring the blog.
I thind we need to run the "CrapCleaner" utility on everything Microsoft !
Know that Apple ad where the PC calls us to complain because we wrote that the fastest notebook running Windows was a Mac? Don't expect a sequel. Apple's new ultraportable isn't dog-slow running Windows, but it's not a greyhound either, even compared to other thin and light notebooks.
Running our WorldBench 6 test, the MacBook Air scored a 61. Our current top-rated ultraportable, the Lenovo ThinkPad X61, scored an 86 on WorldBench. We generally say that you'll notice a 5 percent difference in speed, so the gap between the ThinkPad and a MacBook Air would be very noticeable.
That said, the Air is far from the slowest ultraportable out there, though. The Fujitsu LifeBook P7230, scored a glacial 32 on WorldBench 6. The Sony VAIO VGN-TZ150 wasn't much better at 38. You can see results for more ultraportables on our latest top 10 chart.
Continue reading "MacBook Air Runs Windows Medium-Fast"
Not quite sure if I understand your rating system here, but when I look at the test report for the Lenovo ThinkPad X61, it says that it got "WorldBench 6 Tests - Very Good: 75", not 86...
The Internet is buzzing after Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo. Every Jim, Joe and Sally that has ever used any Web service or product by Microsoft or Yahoo has an opinion and wants to weigh into the matter. I looked around and found many are not happy and are worried Yahoo staples such as Flickr and Yahoo Mail will be negatively impacted.
Around social news site Reddit, one of the big concerns revolves around the services that Yahoo has acquired over recent years including Flickr, Konfabulator, del.icio.us, Pips and MyBlogLog. User Drevor was quick to suggest that some of the better Yahoo services could be scrapped in favor of Microsoft's options.
